Red Earth & Pouring Rain
by AutomaticHeartache
Summary: A Red Kryptonite fic where Kara seeks out Lena's company each time she's under the influence so she can exercise her demons. Lena is a willing party, only faltering when her attachment and intimacy with Kara, under the sway of Red K, become more than she can handle. She wants more, but understands that Kara belongs to the city, to the people, and she can't keep her to herself.
1. Chapter 1: Captive

Chapter 1: Captive

 _Lena_

This isn't the first time this has happened. Or even the second. Or third. You know what you have to do now, sitting on the edge of the bed, sheets clutched over your body in attempts to keep the chill from tearing at your naked skin. Rain starts to beat against the windows of your eerily quiet apartment. Your phone is in your hand, your fingers poised to make the call, yet you just can't seem to force yourself to dial. You look over at her instead, breathing, calm and steady. The rise and fall of her perfectly muscled back as her lungs pull air in and force it out again. Her golden blonde hair is a halo around her head as she sleeps, the imagery so disjointed and wrong, you can't help but admire the irony.

Even now, you see the faint lace of red trace its way across the mask of her face and you sigh. She's cruel like this; she is cold. But she is yours. In the midst of this bliss, this wanton heat, what's a little cruelty? Better to take her at her worst than not at all. Or, rather, let her take you.

The first time it happened, she burst into your office, splintering the door as it burst off its hinges. You were terrified, taking her in, dressed not in her stalwart crimson and blue, but stealth black. A dark figure advancing, slightly menacing, until you found your back pressed against the stark white paneled wall. You tried to question her, your eyes wide, panicked, but she told you to shut up and covered your mouth with hers.

It wasn't as if you hadn't imagined kissing her a thousand times, but even in your wildest dreams, it had never been like this. Her lips were soft but her movements hard. Frantic, forceful. She pressed into you, her lips leaving yours only to suck plumb colored bruises along the pale skin of your neck. Each one stung, sharp and dull all at once, but the pain was forgotten as soon as her lips found yours again. You had to consciously remind yourself to breathe, wrapped so thoroughly around the eternity of her lips, her tongue as it pushed into your mouth, her teeth as they played over your bottom lip.

Your concentration snapped sharply back into focus, though, as her hands pulled at the fabric of your blouse, tearing it as though it were little more than tissue paper. She covered your body with her own, her fingers lighting fires along the bare skin of your back, your hips, your thighs as one hand trailed down and down and down.

Her mouth wandered freely, dipping to taste the salt pricking up from your skin, hot under her attentions. It found the soft skin of your breasts and lingered there, teasing you mercilessly until your breath came ragged and rushed, pushed forcefully from your distracted chest.

And, oh, that hand, it wandered as well.

Dexterous fingers drifted along the hem of your skirt, pushing it higher then slipping under in one fluid motion. She smiled then, wicked and wild, having encountered your body's completely obvious response to her ministrations. She did away with any barriers and you gasped at the sensation of her fingers tracing patterns against such sensitive skin.

She asked permission – even in this altered state she maintained some vestige of respect – but it came dressed in the threat of withdrawal.

"I can stop, right now. _Or_ you can tell me what you want." She pressed into you, her hips grinding against yours, her fingers slick and poised, waiting for your consent. Her blue eyes flashed and you flushed with more heat than you thought you could bear as she dragged her lips close to you ear and whispered sharply, "I want to hear you beg."

And you did. You crashed into her, all scrambling hands and wanting mouth and begged her to touch you, to take you, to fuck you, oh god, please. Over and over until she pushed inside you, until she ripped her lips from yours and they followed her fingers, lower and lower. Still you begged. Until she culled the screams from your throat with a few strokes of her devilish tongue, pushing into you with a strong, steady rhythm all the while. Until your fists clenched and your body seized and you couldn't stand any longer.

And then she left you, weak and waning, alone in your office.

You collapsed into your desk chair and, with shaking fingers dialed the number you were given strictly for emergencies. You took a few cursory breaths to calm before pressing the phone to your ear.

"Agent Danvers, it's Lena Luthor. I think," the words stick in your throat and you swallow, hard, "I think there's something wrong with Supergirl."

 _Red Kryptonite_ , the agent explains, _alters her brain chemistry_.

It's the reason she wants you, lets herself want you. Every dark thought or secret desire she's ever had rises to the surface under its influence. She loses herself, taking a silent backseat to this seemingly drunk and reckless red devil.

 _Are you alright_? the agent asks. You're not, but you tell her you are.

You don't tell her what happened, just that something is wrong. You know more than you let on, so you say less than you could.

Two days later you sit across from your closest friend, and the demure reporter, who still thinks her secret identity is a mystery to you, won't quite meet your eyes.

The second time it happens, she catches you at home. First you scream at the dark figure looming on the balcony of your penthouse, thirty-seven stories up. Then you smile, hand still pressed to your heart, when you recognize the bright eyes, the blonde curls – but the smile falters when you notice the cracks of red light crawling across her soft skin.

She takes you, shuddering with cold and rapture, there on the balcony, and this time she lingers for a moment after you're spent. You thread your fingers through the waving hair at her temple and watch a single tear squeeze from her startling blue eyes before she shakes you off and launches into the night.

Another phone call, another awkward lunch where Kara refuses to meet your gaze.

It happens again, keeps happening, and you almost manage to convince yourself that she loves you. Somewhere, in the dark recesses of her heart, Kara loves you. Why else would she seek you out, if some unspoken part of her didn't desire you? True, her love wasn't kind; it was often silent, and when it wasn't, it was cruel. But she kept coming back to you, this broken, beaten thing with red poison at its heart.

Once she pushed you back on your bed so gently, her hand cradling your head as you sank down. She kissed you over and over; soft, achingly deep kisses that made it feel as if the world were ending not in a blaze, but with a sigh. She ran light fingers over your body, then laced them delicately with yours, and when her velvet tongue drew shudders from your ecstatic frame, she crawled back up and held you 'til they subsided.

Another time she said she only came because she loved the way you bruised so easily for her, the way the mottled maroon and indigo stood out against the ivory of your skin. She was an artist, painting you with blood under the skin. And you would have been upset, but each bruise was a remembrance of her lips on your skin – proof that she had been there even after she had fled.

She began staying after, holding you longer each time even on the nights where kindness had no home with you. She started letting you touch her, moaning as your lips kissed their way down to her breasts, as your lithe fingers found slick, undiscovered places. Her sapphire eyes flashed the first time you sank to your knees before her, teasing her until she came, almost angrily, against your mouth.

Tonight, she stayed.

Tonight you drew your name from her lips more than once.

And you look at her, spent and sleeping, and you can't bear to dial. You can't listen to the agent on the other end of the phone ask you if you're alright.

You're not.

You can't stand another awkward lunch where Kara shies away from your gaze, your touch, out of guilt and secrecy that's already worn threadbare. You pine for her when she sits next to you – feigning ignorance of the intimate map of your body – carrying on as if she hasn't run her hands over every possible inch of your salt-slick skin. You can't survive like this and wonder if the pain and heartache might actually kill you.

But it's not about you, that's the point. That's why you call every time.

She's a hero. And when she's here, with you, with red poison in her veins, she's no longer the patron saint of the city; she's the demon holding her hostage. Agent Danvers, Alex, once told you that being under the affects of Red Kryptonite was like watching the worst version of yourself pilot your body with no way to stop it.

It's this version of Kara who loves you. The dark twisted heart of a hero has tangled with yours and you can't keep it for yourself. You have to let her go. You have to give her back to herself.

And then you'll sit across from her – back in control – you'll smile and so will she. But, your smile won't quite reach your eyes and neither will hers.

You can't hope for this to keep happening, it's cruel to both of you and you don't want that for her, can't want that for her. She needs to be whole, happy, free of poison, of you.

So you listen to the sound of her steady breathing, barely audible over the patter of rain against your penthouse windows.

You dial.

You put the phone to your ear.

"Agent Danvers? She's here."


	2. Chapter 2: Twisted

A/N: Okay, I originally planned this out to be a two-shot, but it got away from me, so there's more coming!

Chapter 2: Twisted

 _Kara_

You wake with a start; bright, warm light invades your vision, pushing in from every corner. You blink, once, twice, and draw your hands to your face, only to tangle fumbling fingers in the wires spiraling out from the monitors taped at your temple. Your eyes well up of their own accord. You know where you are, and you know why – the how eludes you for the moment, but that's less important. You turn on your side and start to twist into yourself, bracing for the inevitable roll of shame sure to come cresting over you at any moment, but instead your eyes light on a body curled into a chair at your bedside. You spring back and scramble at the edges of the bed, panicked, as someone grabs your shoulders.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Alex steadies you in your backward startle, "I've got you, Kara. Sweetie it's okay."

"Wh-what is she doing here, Alex?" you choke on the question, your voice wet and weak. "She can't be here."

"She wouldn't let me take you without taking her too. She's certainly feisty when she wants to be," Alex scoffs through a subtle smile, rubbing soothing circles into your back. "Kara, why didn't you tell me?"

The shame you normally feel in a gradual build after these encounters hits you suddenly, like a swift punch to the gut, knocking the wind from you. You feel into the deep self-loathing that's coursing through you and while you don't try to fight it – you deserve this, after all – you still suffer its spreading, jagged glass running through your veins; it rips though you and becomes a dark mass swelling inside, forcing itself into every crack and curve until you can't breathe. You squeeze your eyes shut, tears forced to cut a stinging path down your cheeks, as your arms wrap around your body – you're almost clawing at your skin as it threatens to split, unable to contain the expansive sludge building up inside you. Air pulls into your lungs in great frantic gulps that you can't seem to regulate and the helplessness you feel only begets more panic.

Instead of drowning, though, you feel suddenly warm as Alex pulls you into a tight hug. She knows the drill; she's watched you fall apart each time, though never quite so viscerally, and she presses you against her, enveloping you completely in hopes of forcing your limbic system to calm. It starts working and your heart ceases it's uncontrolled rattling, your breathing begins to normalize, finding a steady rhythm. Your arms find their way around her and you sink into the embrace, pressing tears into the taught black fabric over her shoulder. The waves of panic and humiliation start to ebb and fade and you're left blown out and hollow.

"I'm so sorry." You eek out, barely audible through the layers of saline and suffering.

"Kara, this isn't your fault." Your sister strokes your hair, standing against the bed with you slumped over her shoulder.

"It is, though."

"You're not responsible for Mon-El anymore – not that you ever were. It's not your fault that he and his gang of thugs have been planting caches of Red Kryptonite all over the city for you."

"I know. That's not – I'm not sorry about that. I will never be sorry about breaking it off with him, I _am_ sorry it's caused him to retaliate so childishly." You spit with no little acerbity.

Alex pushes your hair back from your face and peels the monitor pads from your skin, gently discarding them, "Did you really expect him to take it well?"

"I suppose not." Alex holds an arm out to you and you glance back over your shoulder at the sleeping Luthor before pushing off the bed.

"Come on, we can go for a walk and you can tell me about Lena." You press into your sister's side, still feeling cavernous, a side effect of the Red Kryptonite leaving your system, of the flooding black shame after it shrinks back down.

"I can't. It's – everything is so –" you stall, at a loss for words. Your mouth wraps around profane phrases that could finish the sentiment, but none fall from your lips. Instead a red-tinged chill runs up your spine and you speak in a whisper, 'ruined. I've ruined everything."

"It's not, Kara. I promise." Alex paused as you linger at the threshold of the lab, "Look at her," you start to say _I can't_ and your sister silences you with a withering look, "you can, just for a second, look."

You follow her command and your eyes rest on the sleeping body in the chair. She looks strangely peaceful there, wrapped around herself, a gentle crescent of soft limbs. Her chin is tucked against her knees, long lashes fluttering softly in the throes of deep sleep. You watch for a moment as her whole body expands and contracts with each breath, so alive, so perfectly alive. _I love her_. The thought rises easily, and you almost buck against Alex to turn from Lena, unable to face what you've done to her, but your sister holds you steady and you can't take your eyes off of her.

She's beautiful. You trace the delicate downward curve of her mouth, lips, so often ruby red, now pale and slightly chapped. The silky curtain of her hair is tied back but still manages to spill in rivulets over porcelain shoulders. You want to rush to her, to take her in your arms, to feel the press of her hips against yours. But more than that, you want her laugh ringing in your ears, your name on her lips, coupled with a smile. You want to lay your head against her chest and listen to her heartbeat, steady and strong. You want the way she looks at you, like you're a hero, her hero. But instead you only see the marring of her soft pale flesh, the sweat and the push as you crush her against you, the collapse of her beautiful body, the pleading in her eyes after you've taken what you came for and given nothing in return. No kindness, no quarter.

You want to run. To fly. To prevent this feeling of guilt and self-hatred and love and desperation from rising in your throat, but you can't. It's coming up and won't be stopped. You push Alex away and stumble toward the waste bin near the door, falling to your knees and emptying the contents of your stomach unceremoniously into its waiting maw. Alex is holding your hair, she's calling your name softly, rubbing your shoulders. You want to push her away, to collapse and sink into the floor, to melt away completely. But you can't.

You push off the floor and stagger from the lab, sinking back down against the wall just outside. You push your black sleeve against your sour mouth and gasp desperately once more for air as it rushes into your lungs.

"I can't, Alex. I could have, once, but not now."

"Why, Kara? Tell me what's been going on, please." Alex slid down the wall, resting next to you, one leg pushed out into the hall, the other pinned tightly against her chest.

"It ruins everything I love, Alex – the kryptonite," your voice breaks over the words and you stare straight ahead, tears cutting deeper grooves down your cheek as they slide down the same path over and over, "that's why he's put so much of it out there."

"And why didn't you tell me?" your sister turns and catches your hand, pulling it to her chest. Her eyes are wide and earnest, more than you can handle and you almost pull away.

"Tell you what?"

"That you love _her_." Her voice is quiet, to low for most, but you can hear her. You know you've hurt her in your secrecy, another weight to tip the scales of guilt against you, but she's trying to shove it down, to play the supportive sister, which just makes you cry harder. She wraps an arm around your shoulder and you feel a sort of sick hollow in your chest rise into your throat – the choke of sobs rising.

"I didn't know at first, and then I just didn't know how." You press the fabric of your sleeve against your eyes and let the salt sting as you drag it away. "I started loving her before I even got involved with Mon-El and then everything got so complicated. I mean, she's a Luthor. Do you remember how hard I had to fight all of you to believe me when Lillian kidnapped her from prison?"

"Kara, we would have figured it out. We would have trusted you."

"And then you were all pushing me to make it work with Mon-El, even when you found out he'd been _lying_ to me about his past for _months_." You know your tone is more accusatory than it needs to be, that your words might wound Alex needlessly, but you can't help the frenetic pour of words from your mouth. "You were so willing to forgive him for atrocities he'd _already_ committed. And yet, you were, all of you, too ready to condemn Lena for what you thought she _might_ do." You were resolute. You know there's no one else to blame for your actions, but you can't help but release some of the pent up frustrations that forced you to push your feelings so deep in the first place. You forced your feelings for the last Luthor down so far that it took a dose of Red Kryptonite to unearth them again. You are a high-pitched leak from a slow valve, and the tension is ebbing from your body with every second. "How could I have told you?"

"You're right."

You snap to attention, not expecting any sort of concession from Alex. She can be bullish, you know that better than anyone, and it's often easy to forget that even in all her stubborn bluster, she can also be surprisingly level headed.

"We told you what we thought you wanted to hear instead of listening for what you actually needed." Alex rubs your shoulder and you slump against her, slightly. "I know that I've been busy with Maggie, and I wasn't always on-board with the whole Mon-El thing. Frankly, I wanted to punch him every time he opened his mouth. But I thought it was important to you, so I tried to have your back."

You turn to face Alex and her black coffee eyes are glazed over, sadness pulling at their corners.

"Having my back means being honest with me, even if it's not what I want to hear." You run a thumb under her left eye, pulling the tear before it has a chance to fall.

"I will be if you will." Alex allowed a smile to pull at the corner of her lips, allowing it to fade when you didn't return it.

You settle back against the wall again, silent for a moment.

"It wasn't an accident. The Red Kryptonite exposure." Your voice is flat and you can feel your stomach turn, waiting for your sister's reaction. "It was the first few times, but then, I sought it out."

"Kara."

"I know, I know." Your hands become fists at your temples and you squeeze your eyes shut. You wish you could just disappear. "Winn gave me the device that isolated its radiation signature and the last few times, I followed it and exposed myself on purpose. I don't know, I just felt this pull – I needed it."

You think back to the first time. The power you felt suddenly coursing through your veins. You felt sharper, more calculating, your head no longer clogged with intrusive thoughts of what was _good_ or what was _right_. You suddenly cared so little about what people thought of you, the weight of their judgment fading with each passing moment. You only knew two things: that you were an unstoppable force, and you deserved what you wanted. You remember standing in your apartment, zipping up the stealth black super suit, so like your fallen Aunt's, and you knew you wouldn't share her fate, you were stronger, smarter, faster. You were a goddamn marvel to behold and there was no way you were going to waste it on an ungrateful city. You threw open your windows and shot across the night sky, hooking around to slip into L Corp, unannounced.

You remember Lena's face as her back hit the wall, the way she melted into you as you swallowed her words with your mouth against hers, but you remember it two ways. In one version, you are the strong heroine, taking what is owed her: Lena Luthor, with all her power and influence, should be yours by rights. In another version, you are trapped inside a body that looks like yours, watching as this reckless monster devours the woman you can't allow yourself to love. She does everything you want to do, but with more force and less care. You and she are, ultimately, the same. You watch through eyes that are yours and not yours as Lena falls against your shoulder and begs you to fuck her and, with hands and mouth that are yours and not yours, you oblige.

Almost immediately after, Alex finds you and you wake up in the DEO, laid out in a sunbed feeling like an empty husk where shame has taken up home, filling the space like a hermit crab growing into a too-big shell. You cry and Alex holds you, neither of you speaking of what had passed. According to your sister, you were intercepted before causing any harm, but you knew better.

And it happens again and again.

You find yourself plagued by memories of Lena in waking life, passing remembrances of slick fingers sliding against sensitive skin, the sound of her breathe as it rushes raged against your shoulder, the way she tenses around your mouth, her fingers twisted in your hair, and screams your name before collapsing. Of course, these passing thoughts rise to the surface as you sit across from her desk, dressed down in cardigans and khakis; you blush and refuse to meet her eyes. You are mild-mannered, as they say, and she can't know you're the same woman who two nights before, raked nails across her back until pink swollen lines rose up, scoring her alabaster skin.

And you're _not_ the same woman. Or you are _and_ you're not.

You start to wonder if you're building up a tolerance to the red radiation that rips through your body or if it's becoming a part of you, as sometimes you feel almost whole. On these rare occasions, you still seek out Lena before doing anything else, but you're gentle with her. You let the Kryptonite bring your love for her floating up to the surface without allowing it to corrupt your heart. Instead of ripping – clothing, bed sheets, skin – you're soft and deliberate, worshipping each inch of the Luthor heiress as its exposed. You run light hands over her shoulders, and wrap her up in your arms to stave off chill. You sit for a long moment and allow her to turn in your embrace, pulling at the zipper on your suit until it reveals a jagged slash of exposed skin. She pushes the fabric from your shoulders and you stay still and silent as her fingers trace sinew of your muscled arms, the curve of your breasts, the dip of your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. In this moment, in the midst of this stillness, you watch her drink you in with reverence, mapping the borders of your body, and wonder if she could ever love you. You've been monstrous to her, you know.

But what if you could find this moment again, without the poisonous radiation, without the threat of violence and sabotage, without the fractured voices rising up form within?

You wouldn't deserve it even if you could, because this time, even with its soft stirrings, you sought out the poison so you could stagger, tainted, into her arms.

You are a hero, you've stared down corrupted family, organized crime syndicates, smugglers, slavers, and one very angry ex, but you can't seem to find the bravery you need to come clean to Lena, to face the judgment of your friends, your family. With each dose of Red Kryptonite, you become more and more convinced that you are undeserving of any love, that no one will understand, and that you are nothing more than a coward. And so you allow your love to die a coward's death, a death by degrees, poisoning yourself slowly so you might avoid the possibility of failure or fruition.

"It's not an excuse, but the Red Kryptonite, it twisted everything," you wring your hands as you try and explain it to your sister, "even now I see everything in double. There's a reality where I can fix things, where people in my life are understanding, and where Lena and I can figure it out. And then there's a reality where I am undeserving of any of those choices, where I am a burden to those around me, and where I have ruined any chance I might have with her. And I – even now I don't know which is real, Alex."

You feel the tears come again and roll, hot and stinging, down your cheeks. You cover your face with your hands and feel your sister pull you against her chest. She wraps her thin arms around you, stroking your hair and lets you cry until you slow and stop. You pull back and she takes your face in her hands, gently rubbing the last few stray tears from your cheeks.

"Kara, you're my sister and I love you." You open your mouth to speak and she stops you with a look she could only have learned from your adoptive mother, "I know that when you come into contact with Red Kryptonite, you're not yourself, but I also know that tucked into everything you say and do under the influence has a at least some small kernel of truth at its core." She paused and you gather your brows around the crinkle in your forehead. She gives your forehead a light tap and you both laugh, in spite of yourselves. A moment of levity in the midst of all this strife.

"Let me tell you my truth, Kara, and maybe that can help you understand yours. You are not a burden and you never will be. I love you, we all do, and while we could have been better at how we showed our support, we will never stop trying. You _can_ fix things. It's going to take work and it may be uncomfortable, but it is possible. I know this for a fact."

" _How_ do you know?"

"Because I told her as much." A voice calls from above you and you raise your chin to see a very awake, aware Lena Luthor framed in the doorway, clutching her oversized sweater around her light frame.


	3. Chapter 3: Steel

Chapter 3:  
Steel

 _Alex_

You take her down – the first time – on Cordova, twelve blocks from the L Corp building. Your team rushes in and you set up behind a blockade, the anti-Red K cartridge loaded into the gun braced against the crook of your elbow, poised to fire. It's easier this time than the last, shooting her down. Well, it's never easy; but you understand that, in this case, forcing your sister from the sky in a staggeringly bright flash of searing red light, only to watch the kryptonite leach from her body and vaporize is the best course of action for everyone.

It's terrible when she wakes, the way she curls into you and cries. The strange way she, the unbreakable woman of steel, your fearless little sister, can seem so delicate, so small in your arms. This part never gets easier.

It is in these moments, more than any other, that you love her most. Not because you relish her dependence on you in these times of passing frailty, nor is it due to any false sense of superiority, moral or otherwise. But rather, it's simply because in these desperate moments, her need for love – for acceptance, for understanding – is greatest. You give what she needs most, and you give it freely and without judgment.

Then you go home and shake apart in someone else's arms.

Maggie never asks, knowing that you will tell her when you're able. Instead, she wraps you in wordless embraces, in soft blankets and softer words steeped in empathy and understanding. She shows you unconditional love with her deep-dimpled smiles and warm eyes, her gentle hands, her sweet mouth grazing your skin until you find ecstatic catharsis under her careful attentions. Then you cradle her face in your still shaking hands and pour into her all the worry, the weakness – talking until no more words are left within you. She gathers them up, happy to share the burden and, together, you find your strength again.

You're surprised to get another call from Lena so soon – surprised at the Red Kryptonite contamination coming so quickly on the heels of the one so recently thwarted and, frankly, bewildered at Kara's strange desire to antagonize the CEO in her tainted frenzy. You shrug it off, call your team, take her down. You do it a third, a fourth, a fifth time.

Kara is quieter upon waking each time. You watch as she stares, stoic, no longer at you, but at the ceiling now, tears cutting silent trails across her cheeks, gritting her teeth. You reach out a comforting hand, grazing her shoulder and she flinches, turns, curling into herself, away from you. You still your hand, swallow the words rising in your throat, knowing she'll come around. She just needs a few days to flush the poison completely from her system.

But something nags at you, a faint but constant static in the back of your mind, and she doesn't come around. The hunger in her eyes, the predatory gaze, doesn't fade and Kara grows distant, silent and serious.

She fidgets, hands shake, she's irritable. The sweetness, the confidence, the radiant warmth has faded from her.

"She's behaving like an addict." J'onn says, in passing, answering a question you can't bring yourself to ask your sister.

"The Red K?"

"Her level of exposure has been so high, so frequent, it's possible the extraction process is becoming less effective, that it's still in her system." J'onn shrugs, hands on hips. He's hovering at your shoulder and, had he been anyone else, you might be irked, but you are, instead, grateful for his company. "Though, if you ask me, I don't necessarily think it's the Kryptonite. Not completely anyway. I think it's something else."

"You think it's something she's doing while under the influence?" You lean against the counter, abandoning your lab project for a moment.

"Maybe." He crosses his arms now, raising his eyebrows at you, "It's times like these I wish I could read her mind, but Kryptonians are especially resistant. You're not, though. I can feel your concern, practically _taste_ your anxiety, Alex."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –" you start to apologize and J'onn raises a hand to you, effectively keeping the words stoppered in your mouth.

"How do you find her when she's been exposed?" He asks.

"I get a call from Lena Luthor. Kara seems to seek her out first."

"Why? Have you _talked_ to Lena?"

"No." You pause, "I mean, I've _apologized_. I've thanked her for helping us track Kara when she's infected, but," before you can finish, a chime sounds from your belt. You hold up a finger to J'onn and snap up your phone. "Danvers. Where is she – still _with_ you? Are you alright, are you _safe_? Okay. I'm on my way."

You show up at Lena's apartment ten minutes later and she won't let you in. Or rather, she won't let your team in.

"Just you," She says, something strange causing her eyebrow to quirk up for a split second. "I could actually use your help."

Lena leads you through the dimly lit apartment, you appraise what little you can; it's neat, the door to the balcony is open and the curtains occasionally snap when the breeze kicks up. A few knick-knacks seem to have fallen from a nearby shelf and a half-drained glass of wine sits, forgotten, on a short, wide coffee table, stained with one perfect lip-print in blood red.

"I'm sorry this keeps happening, we –" you stop dead in your tracks as the CEO leads you across the threshold of her bedroom.

Kara is there – asleep – tangled in the sheets; Her blonde hair is a wild halo, splayed across a jagged mess of pillows, and her bare back expands and contracts with the deep, steady pull of breath. You take in the sight, looking from your sister to the Luthor heiress, eyes downcast and a circuit completes, sparking to life in the dark recesses of your brain.

Kara has been seeking this woman out, purposefully. Steeped in toxicity and roiling with untamed aggression, she had come to Lena over and over, not to fight, _but to fuck_. The notion jars you and you rock back on your heels, running a hand through your hair as the dark-haired woman next to you colors at your obvious realization.

You don't have the luxury of time to process, you have to get your sister – your little sister – back to the DEO.

You forgo the use of your gun, opting instead for the more concentrated Red K antidote delivered via plasma syringe and in seconds, Kara has slipped from mere sleep to total collapse as the radiation seeps from her skin and dissipates in a wisp of silky smoke.

Lena presents you with clothing and you watch, holding your growing number of questions, as she slowly, and with great tenderness, helps you dress Kara and carry her to your waiting team. You work in silence, breaking only once when she, Kara's arm tucked around her neck, demands to go with you to wherever you're taking your sister. The Luthor's tone is surprisingly commanding and you find yourself arguing half-heartedly then giving in; you don't completely trust her, but you _do_ trust the way she obviously cares for Kara; it stirs a bit of curiosity in you and more than a bit of sympathy.

Hours later, under the glow of sun lamps back at the DEO, Kara lays still and sleeping. The doctors have gone and now it's just the two of you watching over your sister, lying prone.

You cut your eyes discretely toward Lena who stares down at Kara, unblinking, and clutches an oversized sweater closed around her; you catch a flash of something out of place before it disappears under the bulky cable knit. Crossing to the Luthor heiress, you bring a gentle hand up to the collar of her sweater and pause there for a moment.

"May I?"

Lena nods slowly, her expression caught somewhere between sadness and guilt, and you delicately pull aside her lapel to reveal a handful of mottled bruises trailing across her chest and neck, some the brilliantly fresh purple and dull crimson of blood freshly teased just below the surface, others a warm muted grey fading from the skin – souvenirs from previous encounters. You try to school your features and push the knit further off her shoulder, finding the distinct impression of a hand – four fingers and a thumb – blooming dark against the alabaster pale of Lena's bicep. The dark-haired woman shifts and steps away from you, shrugging back into the knit cocoon once more and you can't help the sting behind your eyes.

You can't seem to find her gaze, "Supergirl did that." It's a statement rather than a question, but Lena nods again, wordlessly, in confirmation. "She, oh god, she didn't, didn't _force_ you–?" You choke on the words, a sickening retch catching in your throat, doubling you over, as tears bead at the corners of your eyes, squeezed so violently shut. You feel a hand rubbing slow circles into you back, and a soft voice answer.

"No." Lena's voice is a low hum. "Of course not."

You attempt to straighten and feel a sudden rush of lightheadedness, staggering slightly. Lena catches you, steadies you, and you can't help the wave of guilt crashing over you as you accept comfort from this woman, so obviously in need herself.

"I'm sorry, I – I should have come to you sooner. I should have set up some sort of security detail for you." You press these words into her shoulder, breaking a bit when she continues her soothing ministrations. "You never told me. You always said you were fine."

You pull back, able to hold yourself upright without swaying now.

"If I had said otherwise, you would have set up some sort of security detail for me." Lena was quiet but her tone was absolute, her eyes trained on the wringing of her hands.

"But, but she _hurt_ you."

"Nothing I didn't willingly indulge or, on occasion, invite." Lena replied, her voice small, softer than you've ever heard it.

"But, why?"

You don't understand why this woman would willingly put herself in danger. Perhaps Lena didn't realize it, but in that state, with the glow of radiation coursing through her veins, Kara was deadly. You're reminded of this every time your arm catches during a rotation, having healed with a slight pinch after your break; every time you doubt yourself, you hear your sister's voice parroting back every insecurity you've ever considered. She is dangerous like this, lethal even. Did Lena have so little regard for herself? For her own safety? To let Kara continue to come to her, to engage in such intimate acts when the threat far outweighed any potential value?

"I love her." Lena says this as if it's that simple, as if it's not a revelation.

You swallow hard, meeting her steady, startlingly intense gaze.

"I love her as Supergirl _and_ I love her as Kara Danvers. In fact, I have for quite some time," if she notices your eyes flash, she doesn't acknowledge it, "but she _allows_ me to love her like this. So I am willing to put up with the risk in exchange for affection and intimacy, however it may come."

"Oh Lena."

"I have to believe that it won't always be this way," She shifts and pulls her sweater more tightly around her, "that someday she'll come to me, clean, and be honest with me, honest with herself. I'm not kidding myself, I know this isn't who she really is – that she can't want me without the Kryptonite – and in the meantime, I will love her any way she'll let me."

In this moment, you can see exactly what Kara sees in Lena Luthor: there's an amazing combination of strength and vulnerability constantly crashing together in this woman, a torrent and tumult few would be able to endure. You can't seem to stop yourself from stepping forward and gathering her up in your arms. She sinks into you and you feel the tension slip from her tired frame, collapsing into the pure and untainted kindness. You stand like that, neither of you pulling back, for several moments, the shoulder of your tac shirt chilling as it soaks through with saline.

You want to tell Lena that truth lies rooted at the heart of each of Kara's choices, when under the influence of Red Kryptonite. That there is hope. There might even be love. But in this moment, words are not required; just warmth, just understanding, complete and honest.

You stand together until Lena starts to sway and grow heavy in your arms. She is understandably wrung out and seems to be having trouble staying upright; you shift and wrap an arm around her waist, lowering her into the bedside chair. She curls into herself and immediately nods off. Even like this, eyes red rimmed and wet, unguarded and unmade, the Luthor is still made of steel.

Lena and Kara are a good match.

You hope that they get the chance to discover that themselves.


	4. Chapter 4: Splinter & Crack

Chapter 4:  
Splinter & Crack

 _Kara_

You scramble to your feet at the sound of her voice as nerves and fear overwhelm you. Your sister pushes from the ground and rises gracefully, her shoulder lightly brushing yours as if to reassure you. You pause a moment, considering Alex's words; if they are true, and you so want them to be, there might be a chance for you to repair the damage you've caused. But as soon as you grasp the idea, it slips through your fingers, silvery and seemingly impossible. A voice, low and thick with thorns, rises from within, hissing that it's all ruinous, charred and black; that everything you touch turns to rot. You stagger back and falter, suddenly unable to remain upright and a pale arm shoots out to steady you.

"Kara!"

Lena is calling your name and she's pulling you toward her. Despite all reason, all the guilt and the guile, you allow yourself to be caught, allow yourself to be drawn into her embrace.

And like that, she's hugging you.

She's hugging you, her arms wrapped around you as if you've done something, anything, to deserve this unbridled show of affection.

She's hugging you and you almost allow yourself to sink into the warmth of her arms wrapped around you, the weight of her chin at your shoulder.

She's hugging you and for a moment, you forget how to breathe. Awash in a heady mix of love and despair, your lungs on the verge of collapse until the jumpstart shock is sent from your brain and you heave giant catastrophic breaths against the press of her body.

She's hugging you and suddenly you feel sick.

You pull away, not expecting the resistance, the tension of her clutching at you, crushing you back to her. You could force your way free, escape the comfort of her embrace, but something about the way she pulls at you, the way her fingers tangle in the loose shirt – _her_ loose shirt – hanging on your weak frame gives you pause. It's woefully desperate, and it threatens to break you.

You've never considered yourself delicate.

You've never really considered yourself much at all, in point of fact. Your body has always been, simply, what it was. You accept that you are strong, fast, solid; these are facts. Your mind is constantly consumed with regulating your speed, your force, your strength, always pulling back, always limiting yourself. But those are all what you _can do_ , not what you _are_. You were born strong; strong heart, stong mind strong body. You have never once considered that you might, in fact, be vulnerable, susceptible: weak.

But here, in the loose cowl of Lena's arms, you are suddenly brittle, faltering and fragile. You are splintering and the pieces are falling away faster than you can collect them. You invited poison into your body and corrupted the one thing you desired more than anything: more than family, more than home, more than veneration. And now you are covered in fault lines that have shaken and split the rough earth of your body, allowing anger, loathing, regret, and pain to crawl, wheezing, up through the cracks.

In spite of yourself, you tangle your fingers, your fists, in the soft knit of Lena's sweater. You tuck against her shoulder, soaking it with saline, and through it all, she's holding you. She's calling your name, soft and low, the vibration humming against your cheek before the sound reaches your ears. She's a snake charmer, a shaman, lulling a dangerous animal into submission through soft words and slow movements.

"I'm so sorry," you whisper over and over and the words disappear into soft skin and knit cables. "I am so, so sorry."

You stand together, folding into one another until you can no longer feel where you end and she begins. After what seems like hours, months, years she finally releases you, drawing back only to cup your face in her hands with almost painful care. The earnestness, the sincerity, in her gaze is almost more than you can bear; made up of everything you can't deserve: empathy, compassion, understanding. Love.

She's pushing the hair back from your face, brushing the tears poised on the apple of your cheeks and you find shock in your own ability to love a person so completely. The moment overwhelms you and for the briefest second, there's no pain, no sickness, no churning shame. She tips your chin down to hers, still whispering softly, a stream of placating, soothing words leaving her lips as she presses them lightly against yours.

And it's gentle. And it's kind.

The blinding aggression that had previously boiled up in you like molten lead never rises and instead the only thing you feel is the flutter of wings beating against the hollow of your aching chest. It's beautiful, it's bright.

This is what it feels like to kiss her. This is what it feels like to love her.

You bring delicate fingers up and brush the hair at her temples, lips drifting to kiss along her cut-glass jaw, trailing down toward the dip of her shoulder. You worship her, placing soft lips against her over and over, wanting nothing more than to show kind attention to every inch of Lena's beautiful body.

You are whole, one body, one mind, a woman without fracture, sinking into bliss.

You linger at the hollow of her neck and can just make out the faint bloom of a bruise coloring lightly. You lay your lips gently against its border and, for a moment, you feel protective – angry bile rising in your throat at the thought of anyone marring the perfect alabaster of Lena's skin.

But then you catch yourself. You fracture as the icy chill of truth creeps up your spine.

This isn't right.

Flashes of red cut through your body, hacking mercilessly into the reality of this moment, slashing at the woman before you, and spoiling the tenderness you so desperately cling to.

You wrench away from her, breaking away with more force than you intended and she shrinks back eyes wide.

You see her soft – cocooned in cotton – shy as she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, sad as she raises emerald eyes, gleaming with tears unshed. But you also see her laid bare before you, her naked form arching under your vice-like grip as your fingers burn bruises into the soft flesh of her bicep. You've mapped the borders of her body, marked your territory with tongue and teeth, claimed every inch of flesh with raking nails and unrelenting mouth. You've treated her to wreck and ruin.

You drop to your knees and can't help but feel into the pervasive, cold hollow of a chest now woefully devoid of flutterings, wings stalled, stilled. But she's there with you, stroking your hair, whispering, again, the kinds words you can't bring yourself to hear; they are reduced to nothing but the low hiss of a foreign language snaking into your ears.

"Kara," she speaks a name both yours and not yours, "Kara, stay with me, please."

Her voice is a dull knife that tears uselessly at your chest, bumping against ribs and sternum as it searches out your heart.

"You need to go." Your voice is sudden, unexpected, surprising you as it churns up from somewhere deep within, a rumble over gravel when it escapes. You squeeze your eyes shut and press into them with the heel of your palms as every glance at her fractures and splits, ecstatic and empathetic, callous and comforting.

"But I lo – "

You cut her off, forcing her to swallow her confession, unable to bear the weight of her affection, " _I_ _need you to go_." You grit your teeth and hiss in a breath as something rips inside, a phantom pain manifesting in your chest, crimson-tinged and jagged. "It's still _inside me_ and I don't trust myself with you, Lena. I need you to stay away from me. This isn't what I want, isn't _how_ I want..." You wrap tense arms around yourself and double over, unable to finish the thought. _I this isn't how I want to love you._

She rises to her feet and staggers back as your sister catches her by the shoulders, leading her gently away.

You can feel the Kryptonite, the little that remains, coursing through your veins – your constant companion – stoking your cravings, corroding your heart. You can't have her near you until you're certain it's completely gone.

It's corrupted you, it's corrupted her.

The only thing you can do, the best thing you can do, is stay away.

She can heal. She can learn that she deserves better than aggression and bruised love. The immeasurable shame at Lena Luthor – proud, strong, Lena Luthor – settling for this tainted affection brings on a new wave of sadness that crests and crashes over you. She was so willing to love you; wanted you to the point of welcoming you at your worst. She deserves so much more, and she needs to know that she is _worth_ so much more.

But you can't be the one to show her this. You need to give her space, give her time. You both need to suffer your own withdrawals so that, perhaps, you can meet again on the other side, healthier, happier.

The thought gives you a moment's peace before the darkness sets in again. You give in to the weight increasing on your body, the press of failure and fatigue and sink to the floor before slipping into the oblivion of a dreamless sleep, endless black and crimson creeping in, curling around your heart.


	5. Chapter 5: Bitter Work

Chapter 5  
Bitter Work

 _Lena_

It's been five and a half weeks.

Thirty-nine miserable days without her; you count them like a prisoner, scratching marks into the soft pith of your heart. If it weren't so counterproductive, you'd wallow in the pain of separation. But then again, your longing is what got you into this situation in the first place: desire without care for consequence.

After the first handful of days, you resign yourself to work, throwing yourself into L Corp, but also into mending the obviously lacking infrastructure of your own crumbling psyche. It's bitter work, picking away at your untouched inner workings, letting someone poke at you, often re-breaking the bones of old habits and behaviors so they might heal correctly. Painful is a word you don't use lightly, but that's what it is. Painful but purposeful; and fulfilling the promise you'd made to Alex.

You'd agreed to stay away, promised not to seek Kara out, knowing that you both had addictions to overcome: hers to the Red Kryptonite and yours to her. You'd sat across from her sister, still too stunned to say anything of value while Alex spoke to the threat of danger, of poison, then your ears snagged on love.

She had placed a comforting hand over yours and your eyes met for a brief moment, hers wet and dark, yours vacant, lifeless. It hadn't been more than 24 hours since Kara had banished you, since her collapse.

You had her.

For the briefest of moments, she was with you. She was real, she was pure, undiluted Kara Danvers and she was kissing you. You can still remember the tangle of soft fingers in your hair, the way her lips trailed across your jaw, down your neck, soft and sweet. She was kissing you the only way you ever want to be kissed again: gentle but deep, so full of love. There was no grit, no grimace, just the easy give of lips grazing your skin in an unadulterated show of affection. But then doubt crept in; something snapped and the moment was gone, taking Kara along with it.

"She does love you," Alex had sighed, "I don't know if that makes this easier or harder."

The agent shifted slightly, as discomfort crept across her face.

"And I owe you an apology, well, many apologies. I didn't see it because I didn't see _you_." you trained your gaze on this woman, so confident and, in this moment, so obviously wounded, "I was so unwilling to see you as anything but your family name. I can't help but think if I had been more open, more accepting, this wouldn't have happened. That she, that you, could have bypassed all of this pain and confusion if only I had listened to her.

"She talks about you all the time, you know. She's never once faltered in her support for all that you do. Your strength of character. Your strength of heart." The agent pushes a shaking hand through her hair and slumps further into the chair. "She talks about you the way I used to talk about Maggie. I don't know how I didn't see it before. God, I'm so sorry."

She had said that last part almost to herself and you almost went to grasp her hand in yours. To ply her with kind words and soft support – it's what Kara would have done. But you couldn't seem to find the words, lost in the empty hollow of your suddenly vacant chest, and so you sat in silence until Alex was able to fill it again.

"The Red Kryptonite, it's a synthetic compound that alters her brain chemistry."

"You told me that the first time it happened, the first time she came to me." You voice had come out colder than you intended, but you made no move to correct your tone.

Alex blew out a captive breath, "I did. What I didn't tell you was that, in Kara, it brings every dark thought she's ever had to the surface. Every bout of jealousy, shred of contempt, every secret desire she's had to shove down, every selfish impulse she's dismissed, however benign, in order to be the woman she is, the _hero_ she is, it overwhelms her when the Red K takes hold."

You had taken a moment to pull your sweater tighter around yourself, still unsure of what to say to all of this.

"The first time she was infected," Alex started rotating her arm gingerly, twisting it and hissing slightly as it moved, joint creaking in socket, "she nearly killed me. I mean, yes, she slammed me to the ground and almost fried me with heat vision, but more than that: the things she said devastated me. Every fight we'd ever had, ever sacrifice we'd made for one another, every moment of insecurity she'd ever sensed in me, she exploited. I thought I might die from the pain of it, from the truth in those words."

At that, you did surge forward to grasp Alex's hand, pulling her into an awkward hug with too much room between you for any true comfort to be exchanged. You recognized the need in her voice, reacted, retreated.

"In every act of cruelty there's a kernel of truth. She buried her love for you because of me, because of us, and it was only allowed free reign when she was under the influence. It's no wonder she sought it out. That's no excuse though." Alex leaned back in her chair, "Not for her and certainly not for you."

You had little else to say to this. There was no comfort to be found here, hidden in the offhanded observation. You turned it over and over in your mind, examining it like an appraiser might inspect a diamond, his own scrutinous eye reflected and refracted back in kaleidoscopic clarity. Then Alex slid a business card across the small table between you.

"What's this?"

"I talked to her after Kara's first Red K incident. She deals mostly with people whose family members or loved ones have been affected by drug or alcohol, which fits in a weird sort of way: you can talk about it without talking about it." Alex shrugged, "She doesn't ask for a lot of specifics and doesn't pry where she doesn't need to. But she's good. And it helps."

She was good. And it did help.

You sit across from her the first time and find yourself unable to stop crying. You tell her about Kara, explaining that she loves you, that much is clear. But she can't allow herself to love you without first embracing corruption – the euphemisms dancing across your tongue to protect your shared secret – and you welcomed her because to have her, sneering and snarling, is preferable to not having her at all.

Or so you thought.

You miss Kara, but after the first week without her, you realize it's not the way her fingers had pressed into you as you screamed against her neck that leaves dew gathered along your cheeks when you wake each morning. Instead, it's her lilting, awkward laugh that brings you to tears, the unbearable absence of it no longer reverberating around your office. Your therapist tells you that you deserve joy in your life and you don't really believe her. Not quite.

After the second week, you can't remember the angry press of Kara's lips against yours. Instead you spend an hour telling your therapist about the way Kara's face lit up that day you ended up in the park on the same day the local animal shelter was hosting adoptions. You didn't take a pet home but Kara had stayed, and you stayed with her, making sure every animal found a loving family. Your therapist tells you there is more than one kind of family and you're starting to believe her.

After the third week you've forgotten the way Kara's fingers bruised your hips as you came against her mouth in a torrent of ecstatic screams and spasms. Instead you cry yourself to sleep remembering the way you would cover her with a blanket as her head dropped to your shoulder, nodding off to whatever nature documentary you'd let her pick for movie night. Your therapist reminds you that you, too, are worthy of care and effort and you almost believe her. Almost.

After the fourth week you no longer harbor any fondness for the way Kara came to you wrecked and ravaged, the way she took you, so willing, so desperate. Instead, you long for the feel of her arms around you, soft sweaters and kind words wrapping you up. You miss the way she believed in you. You want to believe in her. Your therapist tells you that you are worthy of love, of pure love, in its many forms, and you want so badly to believe her.

After the fifth week you know. You know you deserve better than the cruel absent woman who came undone for you, because of you. You remember her now; you see her clearly. You know better. You tell your therapist you deserve joy, you are worthy of care and effort, and you have found a different kind of family. You tell her you are worthy of love and she believes you.

You don't know quite what to do with this revelation; your first instinct is to call Kara. You feel this tremendous weight has been lifted, even though the real work has really only just started; the first thing you want to do is tell your best friend. To tell her that you no longer feel the oppressive weight of responsibility for a woman who could never love you the way you deserve to be loved. You reach for your phone and your hand stills.

Tears prick your eyes and your joy is short-lived.

The sick cavernous feeling returns and curls into a tight ball in your ribcage and you become startlingly aware of just how absent your heart remains. The lesson is still true, in theory. It's the practice that may prove harder. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of effort, of care, of joy. But how can they find their way into your heart when it no longer rests in the hollow of your chest.

How can the bane and the balm for your current condition be so thoroughly entangled in one woman?

You let your hand rest on your phone, turn it over and dial.

"Alex, it's Lena." You pause as she speaks, her tone terse and sharp, "I know. But I need to see her. It's time Alex. You _owe_ me."


	6. Chapter 6: Maybe

Chapter 6: Maybe

 _Kara_

Sometimes the days seem almost normal.

You smile as you shake the mayor's hand after preventing the derailment of a freight train.

You smile as you shake the hand of the tourist, nearly crushed by the loose girder from a swinging construction crane.

You smile as you shake the soot-stained hand of the city's fire chief. He smiles broadly as a thin line of sweat cuts a path through the well-earned grime staining his forehead. It was a grueling ordeal, fighting back the blaze threatening the trade port together, but his struggle and yours were not the same. His men breathed smoke and flame, trained a flood to follow their command, and quenched a bloodthirsty blaze hell-bent on consuming all in its path. You too felt the heat, but your fire burned within – as white-hot and unruly as the inferno you smothered with quick-thinking and icy breath. Each stretch of limb, each fleeting thought, now churn up searing pain and burning memories that will not slake, will not yield to any cooling balm.

Sometimes you slip in and out of waking dreams.

It's the same dream every time, a memory that refuses to settle, refuses to let your mind find a moment's peace.

Delicate, alien hands with razor-thin nails, pulling at you, raking your skin as your veins scream with racing, red-hot venom. Hatred and desire, both blinding, rip through your body and you arch off the sterile steal table as the ropey sinew of straining muscle pulls taut, your sweat-slick skin the only barrier between tension and air.

Then comes the ice.

The sudden absence of fiery poison in you bloodstream shocks your system and your muscles relax only to tense and shiver. For a moment you understand what it is to be truly cold, to no longer feel the warmth of Rao's light, to embrace frailty and let it break you, like so much brittle glass.

You know your spirit can't take much more of this – the pain, the strain and turmoil. And just as suddenly as it began it's over, you feel the warm light of a kind sun stream across your face, warming you – soul to skin.

Familiar hands stroke your temple, clammy and cold, but strangely comforting, as if the glow of unwavering affection could be transferred through the soft friction of fingertips tracing the lines of your face.

It's Alex.

She's smiling at you, her soft, dark eyes piercing the blur of your vision as you swim in the ebbing tide of your own fleeting consciousness. You drift in and out, crashing into yourself like so much salt water beating against some battered shore.

And she's there – your sister, by your side as she always has been, calling your name, pushing the sweat soaked hair from your forehead and brushing her fingertips down the bare skin of your arm. You curl into the contact, groping at her hand, clutching at as if it's your only tether to this world, to life, to love.

You wake from this dream – this memory – alone in your empty room, your mind still swimming in the shallow pools of that harrowing remembrance and you breathe a sigh of hard-won relief.

Sometimes you forget the pain and struggle of loneliness.

You laugh, in earnest, and instead of cloying shame, you feel a hole, an abscess where it once was and that is somehow comforting. Sometimes, you don't even feel hollow, instead you grasp at fleeting joy as the moment bleeds and fades into the next, free of gaps or holes.

Sometimes you feel whole. Or feel you could be.

You realize slowly, painfully, that "dry" and "sober" hold very different meanings. Abstention – avoidance – is not the same as healing and this realization creates a path you begin to walk with renewed purpose.

Who you were and who you could be are as two sides of a canyon, bridged by pain and honesty. You can hear the difference: in the figurative snap of bone re-breaking, so it can finally be set to heal correctly. You can see it in the slumped shoulders and open face of one who has surrendered herself completely, hoping desperately for transformation. You recognize her, the one who has given herself over to change, and she recognizes you: you are the same.

You can feel it in the air, thick like smoke hanging in heavy tendrils that swirl into the nostrils of the newly freed as they breathe deeply. You breathe deeply, and for once don't feel the pang of guilt or shame or angst; instead, you feel clean, cool air rush into your lungs, and you are grateful.

Sometimes you hate yourself for what you've done; sometimes you hate the Red Kryptonite for what it's done to you. Then you hate yourself all over again for misplacing the blame and slide helplessly, sullenly back into guilt. It's a tedious process, this healing thing, and you have to hold on to hope. Hope that all this pain and doubt and struggle will leave you better than you were. This rehabilitation is of body, mind, and spirit, it is no small undertaking, and nothing of great significance or value was ever easily won.

Sometimes you can't believe how far you've come, the progress you've made.

You replay memories in your head: looming over Lena as she stands on her balcony, eyes wide and soaked to the bone in the pouring rain. You can remember the gentle way the rain-slick sheet hugs the curves of her body as she clutches it uselessly around her. You see the longing in her eyes as you hover just out of reach.

The one who wrecked her body so thoroughly, who ravaged her and fled is both you and not you. You no longer feel the splinter of your own tainted consciousness, but you can separate who you were then and who you are now. They are the same, and they are different. The path between the two is a long stretch of road and you can see all its twists and turns because you've travelled that road. You can own the reckless decisions you've made and understand that rehabilitation of spirit does not create a blank slate; it doesn't erase or excuse past action. Instead it creates a lens through which you can view and understand your past to inform a better future.

Sometimes you wonder if you're ready.

Have the broken bones had sufficient time and therapy to knit back together? Has the sickening guilt you once wrapped around yourself like a thick, suffocating blanket truly abated? You feel almost light most days, a renewed sense of purpose, a hard-earned grace welling up, deep inside. But are you ready for her?

There's a difference between training a river to divert its path and creating a dam. One takes time and patience, carving new paths through earth and hoping the chosen course alleviates the trauma to the land. The other is a hard stop, a quick fix. It may solve the immediate problem, but it can't last forever. The water will inevitable build, and no matter how well constructed, the dam will burst and the problems you never addressed will flood and consume your life.

You've trained your river; you've done the work and will continue to build on what you've discovered. You've been broken down into your smallest pieces and have managed to reassemble yourself into the woman standing in front of her door, too afraid to knock. You sigh and dip into the reservoir of grace within for a moment of peace before steeling your nerves.

Alex said she was ready weeks ago, that she had been working too and had asked to see you. But you weren't ready then. You had more work to do, more pieces to reassemble; you weren't whole yet.

But you might be now.

And what of Lena, had she found her own reserve of strength? Was she fueled, instead, by righteous anger? Would she understand the lengthy explanation – the apology – the narrative you brought for her or would she reject it outright? Would each of you, both broken down and reassembled, even recognize one another?

One way or another, you have to find out. You raise your hand to her door and pause – breathe in and out – before knocking. The world stops and the seconds between asked and answered drag into eternity. You train your eyes to the floor, not wanting to invade her privacy with your piercing vision as the latch turns and the door sighs open.

She's there, beautifully casual, and for a moment you forget to breath. Her posturing is soft and her expression momentarily unreadable. Then, an unmistakable smile slides across her lips and you let go the breath you weren't even conscious of holding, melting into the meaning behind that smile.

You see her, a pillar of strength and vulnerability and she seems to see you too. And in this moment, you know you can tell her anything, tell her everything. And in this moment there is hope, hope for now and hope for the future.


End file.
